Use Any Darn Font You Want FLIR

Peter Prestipino

Posted on 3.16.2009

Do you remember that designer who told you there was simply no way you could use Calibri as the font for your website? Well, he was wrong. Using FLIR - Facelift Image Replacement (or FLIR), an alternative to sIFR that does not require Flash - you can use any darn font you wish. Quick side note - one of the most popular (highest trafficked) posts in November of 2008 was on Web design package CoffeeCup's Web Typography Pack which includes a sIFR Font Maker.

Getting started with FLIR takes just a few minutes. Download, unzip and upload, then choose and configure your fonts. Make the necessary modifications to CSS declarations and selectors and you're pretty much good to go. FLIR is probably best used for making modifications to headlines, subheads, etc. and not as the actual body copy itself.

Designers/developers will need Web servers with PHP and the GD library. There are some issues, but minor ones. The PHP GD library does not render details very well, but FLIR is easier to implement sIFR and does not require Flash to create or view.

Solutions like sIFR and FLIR may be tail chasing as CSS3 will support various webfonts (as do recent versions of Firefox and Safari).